by James Oswald
‘We can’t find Jennifer Beasley at all, sir,’ she said.
‘What do you mean, you can’t find her? She’s in the mortuary.’
‘Aye, I know that. Her body’s there. But she’s not in any of our records. She’s not got a driving licence or a passport, nothing with social security. I even ran the name through the local libraries and there’s nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘It’s like she’s a ghost, sir.’ DC Stringer pointed at the screen. ‘Either she’s been wiped from the records or we’re not getting her name right. I’ve tried every variation on Jennifer Beasley I can think of though, and that was the name we found in her notebook, right? It was written down. Nobody misspells their own name.’
‘What about her hotel room? She must have given them an address when she checked in?’
‘I gave them a call, but she’d only put an email address on the form. Don’t think Foxton House is the kind of place that cares too much, as long as they get paid.’
‘OK. When he gets back from the hospital, you and Lof—, … DC Blane can go round and have another look at her room. We’ve still got the keycard and nobody else should have been in there. We only had a brief look, so you might find something else. Try speaking to any of the staff, too. You never know, you might get lucky.’
‘Hospital? Is Lofty OK?’ Harrison asked the question, but McLean could see the worry spread across Stringer’s face, too. Hard to believe neither of them had heard. It was a good forty-five minutes since the incident. Time was when that sort of gossip would be halfway to Strathclyde by now.
‘He’s fine. There was an incident with the drug dealer, Saunders. Lofty … helped. I sent him off to the hospital to check everything was OK. He should be back soon enough.’
Harrison frowned, clearly unconvinced, then turned back to the screen. ‘There’s something we’re missing here, sir. With Jennifer Beasley, I mean. What if that’s not her real name?’
‘Go on.’
Harrison picked up a slim spiral-bound notebook from the desk. McLean recognized it as the one they had taken from the flat. The one with several interesting names in it that he’d not had time to follow up yet. She opened it, folded back the cover and held it up for him to see. It was mostly doodles, scribbles and the dead girl’s name, but underneath that were heavy scrawled lines in biro.
‘I had a leaf through, really haven’t had time to do more than that, but see here? Reckon it says “Maddy’s Notebook – Do Not Touch!” Only it’s been scribbled over with a ballpoint pen so it’s hard to read.’
McLean peered closer. It was clear that something had been scrawled out, but he’d be hard pushed to tell what. On the other hand, Harrison’s eyes were maybe twenty years newer than his.
‘So you think her real name’s Maddy, or Madeleine or something?’
‘Aye, but not Beasley. That’s not coming up with anything on the system either. Only, if she’s really Maddy, then why go by Jennifer? And why can’t we find any records for either of them?’
‘I take it you’ve got a theory?’ McLean had one himself, but he was interested to see whether Harrison or Stringer might have the same idea.
‘It might sound a bit far-fetched, sir. But what if she was in witness protection? Maddy’s her real name and Jennifer Beasley’s an alias?’ Harrison’s voice faltered, as if she was unsure, but it was much what McLean had been thinking.
‘If that was the case there’d be records still, surely?’ Stringer said. ‘Witness protection would come up with a whole new identity, and there’d be a DNA record somewhere, wouldn’t there? We got no hits at all.’
‘We didn’t, no.’ McLean glanced at the clock above the door, wondering if the DCC was still about or if he was even now spiriting Chief Superintendent Forrester out of the station under cover. ‘But that’s not to say alarm bells haven’t been going off somewhere else.’
‘So how do we go about finding something like that out?’ Harrison asked. ‘It’s way above my pay grade.’
‘Isn’t it fortunate then that someone much more senior owes me a favour.’ McLean headed for the door, then finally remembered why he had come into the CID room in the first place.
‘Either of you seen Grumpy Bob around?’
‘Think he’s still out at Livingston, sir.’
‘OK. Sort us out a lift to the Royal Infirmary will you, Harrison? I want to have a word with our mutual friend Gregor Wishaw. Meantime I’ll go and see if I can’t shake loose a few secrets from higher up the tree.’
54
A wilting hot sun burned in a sky so clear it was almost black as McLean stared up at the concrete and glass hulk of the Royal Infirmary. The squad car that had brought him and DC Harrison over had dropped them too far from the entrance to be comfortable, before rushing off on an emergency call. A few hardened souls were braving the heat to sneak a crafty cigarette, but most of the people hurried through the entrance into the air-conditioned comfort inside as quickly as they could.
‘Didn’t think I’d be back here so quickly, sir,’ DC Harrison said as McLean held the door, feeling the welcome draft of cool air on his face. His back and legs felt sticky with sweat; maybe the tweed suit wasn’t the best choice for the weather.
‘Quickly? Oh, yes. They brought you here yesterday evening. I should have asked how you were feeling this morning. Sorry.’
‘No need. I was fine before we got as far as Haddington, but the doctors insisted on giving me a full check-up. Sure I’ve fried more brain cells out with the lads after we’ve cracked a case.’
McLean had to smile at that. Time was he’d probably drunk himself senseless, too, with or without the help of his friends. Nowadays, though, the hangover seemed more of a price to pay than the pleasure was worth. Perhaps he was getting old.
A uniform constable sat on guard duty in the corridor outside Gregor Wishaw’s room. He looked twice at the two of them approaching, gaze swiftly returning to his fascinating paperback book. Only on the third time did he recognize them and scramble to his feet.
‘Inspector, sir. Sorry. They said you were coming. Didn’t say when, though.’
‘No worries, Jim. Anything good?’ McLean inclined his head towards the book, still clutched in the constable’s nervous hand.
‘I … Umm … That is …’
‘It’s OK. I won’t tell your duty sergeant.’ He reached for the door handle. ‘How’s the patient? Awake?’
‘Not sure, sir. Nurse took in some stuff about ten minutes ago. Think she was changing some of his dressings. He’s quite a mess.’
McLean nodded his understanding, opened the door and stepped inside.
They entered a surprisingly airy room, lit by a large window on one wall. A frame had been erected around the bed, wires dangling from pulleys and holding up Gregor Wishaw’s stookie-clad legs. He had broken one arm as well, his neck in a brace and his face peppered with scabs. But he was awake.
‘Wha’ the fuck’re you doin’ here, pig?’ His voice slurred with painkillers, eyes narrow as he stared first at McLean, then at Harrison. ‘Pigs, aye.’
‘It’s good to see you, too, Gregor.’ McLean drew up a chair and sat down a few feet away from the bed. ‘Thought we’d have a wee chat. Seems you’ve been keeping secrets from us.’
‘Dunno what y’r talkin’ ’bout.’
‘Ah, but I think you do. See, we know how it all works now. Extech Energy is the collection hub for industrial solvents that really should be being disposed of more carefully. Only that’s expensive, isn’t it? Far easier just to tanker the stuff out to the middle of nowhere, shove it in some old barrels and hide it away in a disused railway tunnel. How long’s that been going on for? How many other sites have you and your friends been polluting? What else are we going to find when we go poking our noses in all of LindSea Farm Estates sheds?’
‘It’s not …’ Wishaw tried to shake his head, found that pain and his neck restraint stopped him. ‘’S’not like that. Waste’s just a
tiny part’f it. ‘’S’all about the money. Makin’ it clean.’
McLean paused before speaking again. He knew that he’d be in trouble for interviewing a suspect while he was under duress, brain addled by painkillers and quite probably concussion, too. Nothing he got from Wishaw could ever be used in court, and the simple fact of his being here, talking to the man without a lawyer present, could mean he would walk free from any other charges. But, at the end of the day, neither he nor Harrison had been injured, and Wishaw was just a small cog in a bigger machine.
‘James Barnton. Why’d you dump his body?’
Wishaw frowned, then winced as the cuts on his face stretched open. ‘Who?’
‘Barnton. Security guard at Extech. We know you moved his body from the biodigester site to Dalry Cemetery. Why?’
‘Dunno what youse talkin’ about.’
‘Aye, I think you do. We’ve got CCTV of you in the Dalry Road the night before he was found. Number plate recognition camera puts your pickup leaving the city not much later that morning. You’d be surprised how easily we can track you, Gregor.’
Wishaw said nothing, but his eyes were filled with fear.
‘Here’s what I think happened,’ McLean continued. ‘Barnton died at work. Jury’s out on exactly how, but our best bet is he had some kind of seizure. He was leaning back against the garage door when he was found. You know, the garage door behind which they’d hidden all those barrels of corrosive muck? But he’d been there long enough for the blood to settle in his back and start to clot. It left very regular marks on his skin, see?’
Wishaw opened his mouth, but no words came out.
‘Couldn’t have the police poking their noses into Extech again. Not before you’ve got the whole operation cleaned up and hidden away on the building site next door. So somebody calls you up, tells you to get rid of the problem. That is what you do in this organization, isn’t it, Gregor?’
‘Din’t do nuthin’.’ Wishaw tried to shake his head again.
‘You went to his flat, carried him like he was drunk. Maybe thought you’d just leave him there in his bed for someone else to find. Poor soul, died in his sleep. Tragic. But then you got creative. Why’d you do that? Was it the way he looked? Something else?’
Wishaw said nothing, just stared at the ceiling, eyes glistening with tears.
‘So you changed his clothes for running gear, grabbed the first pair of shoes you could find. Then you dumped him in the cemetery so it looked like he’d dropped down dead while out exercising. Couldn’t do anything about that expression on his face, though, could you?’
Something seemed to break in him, and Wishaw’s gaze dropped down to his one free hand, the button close by that would dispense more morphine into his drip. He sniffed, blinked away tears he couldn’t bring himself to cry, then looked up at McLean, eyes wide.
‘Poor bastard was scared to death.’ Wishaw’s slur disappeared, his voice barely a whisper. ‘Ain’t never seen nothin’ like it. Sat there, eyes wide, like he’d screamed himself dead. Never was one to believe in ghosts, but if you asked me now I’d say he’d seen the devil himself.’
‘What about the cemetery? Why dump him there?’
‘Din’t look right, lying in his bed there. He was too stiff, and that look on his face.’ Wishaw’s voice cracked as he spoke. ‘First person to see him’d ken he’d been moved. ‘’Sides. Who ever died in their bed, right?’
‘You know interfering with a corpse is a serious crime, aye?’ Harrison spoke up from the far side of the room, where she’d been standing quietly, taking notes. ‘Especially for someone who’s still on licence.’
Wishaw looked over towards her, then back at McLean. ‘You think I give a fuck about that? About going back to prison?’
‘You should. There’ll be no parole this time.’
‘Parole?’ Wishaw let out a noise that might have been laughter, might have been crying. The tears were back either way. ‘It’s too late for that. I’m fucked and I know it.’
‘How do you mean?’ McLean asked.
‘Cos I saw him myself. Saw what Jim must’ve seen. Last night at the tunnel.’
‘Last night? When you tried to run us down with your truck?’
A momentary confusion covered Wishaw’s features, as if McLean had accused him of something inconceivable.
‘Weren’t trying to run you down. I was trying to run it down. Thought I could kill it. Aye, that’s some joke.’ Wishaw tried to laugh, setting off a spasm of coughing.
‘What do you mean “it”?’ McLean recalled the scene, the impossible image his mind had conjured up. It wasn’t possible that Wishaw could have seen it, too. He hadn’t breathed deep of the toxic fumes. ‘What did you see?’
Wishaw’s face had turned red now, his coughing more severe. His eyes grew wide as his free hand thrashed weakly around the covers for the morphine button and oblivion. His breath came in ragged gasps and sooner or later one of the monitors would trigger, bringing a nurse running.
‘You. Saw. Him.’ His words came out as a hoarse gasp as his hand finally found the button and pressed it hard. The drug stilled his spasm, and as he relaxed his voice trailed away. ‘You saw him. The devil. He was …’
The roads were mercifully clear as McLean drove back to the station, a pensive DC Harrison in the passenger seat beside him. Gregor Wishaw’s last words before the morphine took him off to his happy place had been disturbing on several levels, not the least of which was that McLean had seen something. He’d put it down to the fumes coming out of the tunnel, a trick of the evening light. It certainly hadn’t been any kind of devil; he was fairly sure of that. And yet something had made Wishaw react, and stupidly.
‘What did you make of his story, then?’ he asked as they approached Cameron Toll and finally found the traffic.
‘Wishaw?’ Harrison thought for a while before continuing. ‘I’m inclined to believe him, actually.’
‘What? About seeing the devil?’
‘Well, maybe not that. But I don’t think he was trying to kill us. Not by ramming that shutter door with his truck. I mean, just look at the state of him now. All he really needed to do was block us in the tunnel. We’d be unconscious in minutes, dead in half an hour. If what he told us about Extech and moving Barnton’s body is true, then the most sensible thing he could have done was run. No way killing us would have made his problems go away.’
‘I agree, and, sure, he’s prone to violence, but Gregor Wishaw’s never been suicidal. So why did he ram the door?’
Harrison stared out of the windscreen as they moved slowly up Craigmillar Park, heading towards Newington. ‘It was just you, me and Wishaw back there yesterday, wasn’t it, sir?’ she asked finally.
‘You mean before the cavalry finally showed up?’ McLean risked a glance sideways as he overtook a line of parked buses, but Harrison still wasn’t looking at him.
‘Only. It’s weird. Maybe my head got too messed up by the chemicals in the tunnel. But when I try to think through the sequence of events I keep coming up with their being someone else there all the time. Someone actually in the tunnel with us. I can’t put a face to them, though. Can’t really describe them at all.’
It was McLean’s turn to sit silent for a while, concentrating on the road ahead until a set of red traffic lights brought them to a halt.
‘I think we all got rather more fumes from that tunnel than we realized.’ Even as he spoke, he knew he didn’t really believe what he was saying. But the alternative didn’t bear thinking about.
‘If you say so, sir.’ Harrison sounded like she didn’t believe it either. ‘What next, then?’
‘Time to concentrate on wrapping up all the loose ends. If half of what Gregor told us about their operations is true, the Organised Crime boys will be all over this by the end of the day. Think I’d like to find out who’s behind all this before they do. There’s still one body to identify, too, and we need to track down the mysterious Jennifer Beasley’s next of kin
if we can. Draw a line under the crash investigation.’
The lights turned green, the road ahead clear for a moment. McLean took off with perhaps a little more enthusiasm than he’d intended, the car leaping forward as if it too was eager to get things wrapped up. He eased off the throttle, arriving at the next set of lights as they turned red. It was going to be one of those afternoons. They weren’t far now from the site of his old tenement flat, and looking out the side window, McLean saw the old café where he and Kirsty used to go for breakfast on those rare mornings when he had the day off. Before that it had been a bank, directly across the road from a branch of a rival bank. That, too, had closed, although it hadn’t yet been converted into anything else. No one did their banking in person any more, it seemed. Everything was online these days.
‘Did anyone get in touch with Alan Lewis?’ he asked as the lights changed once more.
‘Alan –? Oh, the finance guy.’ Harrison opened up her notebook, flicked through a couple of pages. ‘Were we supposed to?’
‘His number was on Claire Ferris’s phone, remember? And he was the money behind Finlay McGregor, the hauliers. What’s the betting he’s got an interest in LindSea Farm Estates, too?’
‘You think he might be the mastermind of the whole operation?’ Harrison looked sceptical. ‘Isn’t he, like, one of the richest men in Scotland? Why would he get his hands dirty with something like this?’
Down East Preston Street, and McLean craned his neck to look up at the remains of his old tenement. Scaffolding still clung to the facade like metal weeds, but work had begun behind it to replace the burned-out building. He wondered if all the flats were sold now. The city was booming and property prices heading steadily upwards. Lots of places to put dodgy money and shoogle it about until it came out clean.
‘I don’t know,’ he said finally. ‘Perhaps we should ask him.’
55
‘Apparently Lewis didn’t come in to work this morning, sir. PA said she didn’t know what his movements were for the next few days.’
