The Gathering Dark

by James Oswald

  McLean scanned the words looking for the story between the lines. The news had completely passed him by sixteen years ago, but he’d been a junior constable back then, struggling to cope with the death of his fiancée. A house fire in the Home Counties that claimed the lives of two judges, an ex-Cabinet minister and a multi-millionaire hedge-fund manager wouldn’t have stuck in his memory even if he had seen it at the time.

  ‘Scroll back up to the top, will you?’ He flicked his fingers at the screen, then waited while Blane fumbled with the little wheel on the top of his mouse, too small for his enormous fingers. Eventually the line he was looking for came into view. A publication date at the start of the next millennium and the name of the journalist who had filed the piece.

  ‘Robert Simons. See if you can’t track him down. Have a word with him about the fire. Maybe drop the name Maddy into the conversation. You never know, it might jog his memory. Chances are he knew exactly who the children were but didn’t name them because someone told him not to.’

  ‘On it, sir.’ Blane reached for the phone beside his screen and started dialling.

  ‘You want me to help him with that?’ Stringer asked. Both he and Harrison were standing now, their eagerness to get stuck into this new investigation clear. It was a distraction, though, not something they should be wasting time and resources on. Jennifer Beasley’s true identity wasn’t a mystery, after all. There was at least one person in the building right now who knew it. But Stringer and Blane worked well together, and with the Organised Crime division taking over the Extech investigation there wasn’t much else left for them to do.

  ‘OK. But don’t waste a lot of time on it. I’ve already told Featherstonehaugh to claim the body. Chances are he’ll be taking the other one, too.

  ‘You want me to keep looking for Lewis, sir?’ Harrison asked. It was another piece of a puzzle they no longer had to put back together, but McLean hated leaving a job half done.

  ‘Aye. Keep on that. Needs be, we’ll pay his town house a wee visit.’ He checked his watch, the afternoon marching on. ‘First, though, I’m going to get myself that cup of tea.’

  And with any luck there might even be some cake left.

  ‘Might I have a quick word, Tony?’

  McLean looked up from his table in an almost empty canteen. The last piece of cake lay on a plate in front of him, a mug of tea beside it. He’d hoped for a moment’s calm in what had become an impossibly busy day. A chance to get his thoughts together, puzzle out the mystery of the facial reconstruction he recognized, and think up a way to refuse the promotion foisted on him by the DCC without losing his job. DCI Featherstonehaugh clearly had other plans.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Please, call me Tim. Less formal than “sir” and easier to say than Featherstonehaugh.’ He pronounced his own name incorrectly, then smiled at a joke he’d surely been telling for years. ‘And, besides, we’ll be the same rank soon enough.’

  ‘If it’s all the same, I’ll stick with “sir” for now. Was there something you needed?’

  ‘Rather the other way around, isn’t it? Or am I wrong that you’ve just set your band of sleuths to finding out all about Maddy?’ Featherstonehaugh had a smile on his face that was halfway between friendly and punchable. He pulled out a chair and sat down, eyeing the cake hungrily.

  McLean drew the plate closer, setting the mug of tea as a barrier between them. ‘How long have you been at Gartcosh?’ He hoped the change of subject would throw the detective chief inspector off his stride.

  ‘Six months now. Not sure what I did to piss off my boss, but to be honest Scotland’s a lot nicer than London these days. Too much division what with the Brexit nonsense. All those politicians flailing about like they’ve got a clue what they’re doing, making life impossible for us poor civil servants. No, your lot seem a lot better organized. Or at least better disciplined. Much more interesting being up here. And that facility you’ve built over there is something else. You any idea how many foreign law enforcement agencies have sent teams to see what we’re doing? It’s mental.’

  McLean had interviewed enough witnesses to know a man beating around the bush when he saw one. ‘There something I should know?’ he asked

  Featherstonehaugh paused a moment before answering. McLean was fairly sure it was an act, but he was happy enough to indulge the man. It was always better to be on the right side of the NCA. They could make life difficult or they could be extremely helpful, depending on the phase of the moon. The longer he took deciding what to say, the more time McLean had to eat his cake, too.

  ‘It’s about Jennifer. Maddy. You’re right. She and the young boy were the only survivors of that house fire your DC Blane uncovered. She wasn’t meant to be here in Edinburgh. The last place we had her was a flat in central Manchester about six months ago. Then she went off the radar. Nobody knew where she was until her DNA match popped up on our screens. Caused quite a bit of consternation, I can tell you.’

  ‘Why are you still keeping them hidden? They’re both adults now, should be doing their own thing.’

  ‘Witness protection’s for life, Tony. You know that.’

  ‘What about the boy? I take it you set him up here, in Edinburgh.’

  ‘About five years ago. He goes by the name Edward Gosford now. Ed. He’s got a place in Gorgie, but he’s not answering his phone.’ Featherstonehaugh pulled a slim piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and handed it over. Two lines of an address, a mobile number. ‘You’re not supposed to have that. You certainly didn’t get it from me.’

  ‘You were quick enough to move in on Jennifer Beasley,’ McLean said. ‘Why not round up the lad, too?’

  ‘Beasley was protocol. Clean up. I’d love to go and knock on his door, but you wouldn’t believe the trouble we’d be in if we did anything more active than observing Ed right now, and he’s nowhere to be seen. If he’s got wind of what’s happening, chances are he’s gone to ground, but I can’t risk rocking that boat. Just thinking about the paperwork makes me itch.’

  ‘So you want me to do your dirty work for you.’

  ‘Something like that.’ Featherstonehaugh shrugged. ‘Look, you’re local CID. You can go to his place and nobody’ll ask any questions. More importantly, there won’t be a paper trail that people we don’t want finding Ed can follow.’

  ‘They’re still out there, then? Still looking for him?’

  ‘You know the sort of people we’re dealing with here, Tony. They never give up, and they’re very, very patient. There’s only two people in the whole of the NCA who know Edward Gosford’s real name, and quite frankly I’d like to keep it that way. Makes my life a whole lot easier.’

  ‘You care about him, don’t you.’

  ‘Of course I fucking care about him. He’s had a shit life so far and deserves a break.’ Something in Featherstonehaugh’s features changed, as if the DCI were thinking about his own past and not that of some young man in witness protection. ‘Look, he didn’t do well coming up through the care system. Hardly surprising given what happened to him before. He was two when his mother sold him to those people. Six when we found him and Jennifer.’

  McLean made the paper disappear like a skilled magician. ‘Poor bastard. I still don’t know why you couldn’t tell me this before, though. And I think you’re forgetting the main reason why I wanted to track Jennifer down. She’s dead already, and if she was here looking for her friend, then there’s every chance he’s dead, too. Except that if it was him, you’d have matched his DNA like you did Jennifer’s, right?’

  Featherstonehaugh shook his head sadly. ‘Wish it was that easy, Tony. There’s another thing you should know about Ed. Well, a couple of things, really. The first is that he’s what you might call a driven individual. He’s spent most of his short adult life tracking down what he considers to be injustice and exposing it to the world.’

  ‘Sounds like we should be recruiting him.’

  ‘Believe me, I’ve tried. He’s not big on b
eing a team player, though. Likes to do things his own way. Can’t say as I blame him, after all that’s happened to him.’

  ‘So what’s the second thing?’ McLean asked.

  ‘He’s something of a hacktivist, if you’re familiar with that term. Breaks into corporate computer networks and exposes all their dirty secrets to the world. As far as I can tell, he’s not in it for the money, just some personal moral crusade, but he’s very good at it. When the DNA search pinged Jennifer’s record, I double-checked Ed’s just to be certain it wasn’t him.’

  ‘I assume it isn’t, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’

  ‘I don’t know if it’s him. His record’s been tampered with and the entry on the DNA database is missing entirely. He must have hacked the NCA and we didn’t even know. I dread to think what other systems he’s been in.’

  McLean finished his cake, leaned back in his chair and took a long sip of coffee. Too many coincidences were piling one upon another now, but one in particular niggled away at the back of his mind.

  ‘You set him up here five years ago. That’d be when he left school, right?’

  Featherstonehaugh cocked his head to one side as he considered the question, then nodded. ‘Before my time, but yes.’

  ‘Where was he before that? Who was looking after him?’

  ‘I can’t tell you, Tony. You know that.’

  McLean drained the last of his coffee, then stood up to leave. ‘It was Helensburgh, though, wasn’t it. And he didn’t hack the NCA database, you let him in. He just did a little more than you asked him to, am I right?’

  He didn’t wait for the DCI’s answer. Didn’t need to. It was written all over the man’s face.

  58

  He’d never really thought highly of Gorgie when he’d been a beat constable, and twenty years on it wasn’t much improved. Like most of Edinburgh there were good bits and bad bits, but the difference between them was not as marked here as in some parts of the city. Judging by the cranes and boarded-off building sites, it wasn’t immune to the development frenzy that had gripped most of the capital, though.

  It took a long time to find a parking space, and McLean couldn’t help thinking that maybe spending about a tenth of the money on something like Emma’s old pale-blue and rust-brown Peugeot would have made more sense than his Giulia Quadrifoglio. The shiny new Alfa looked as out of place as a tweed suit at Tynecastle.

  ‘Dad’s a Hearts fan.’ DC Harrison nodded her head in the direction of the football stadium as she closed the passenger door. ‘Used to take me to matches on a Saturday afternoon.’

  ‘Don’t tell Grumpy Bob. He’s a Hibs man through and through.’

  ‘Can’t stand football, sir.’ Harrison smiled at a joke only she heard. ‘Much happier out with my uncle seeing the touring cars at Knockhill.’

  ‘I can see why you and Manda Parsons get on so well.’

  A hint of a blush spread across the detective constable’s face, so faint you might not notice it over her normally florid complexion were you not trained in the skill of observation. McLean filed it away as a nugget of unimportant information, then turned on the spot, trying to find the address he’d been given. They crossed the road to an already open tenement door, stepped into a dark hallway that might have been quite pleasant once. Now the paint on the walls was flaking off in great chunks that littered a flagstone floor untroubled by a broom in many years. It smelled like a public toilet, and the afternoon light struggled to lift the gloom. A broken bulb hung from a short flex in the ceiling.

  ‘What exactly are we hoping to find here, sir?’

  McLean stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking up to the skylight high overhead. The question wasn’t as easy to answer as he might have liked.

  ‘Jennifer Beasley wasn’t her real name, right?’

  Harrison nodded. ‘Aye, Lofty told me. She was given a new identity. New life far away from the people who might still be looking for her.’

  ‘That’s more or less right. But her new life wasn’t here in Edinburgh. She was set up in Manchester, had a job there, too. The NCA kept a very loose eye on her, which is probably why they didn’t notice she’d gone missing. They only found out she’d tipped up here when we ran her DNA through the database. Pinged some automated warning.’

  Harrison followed McLean’s gaze up the stairwell. There were two landings above them, four tiny bedsit flats. ‘You think she came looking for this place?’

  ‘I think she came looking for the young man who lives here. He was the boy who survived the fire. And if what DCI Featherstonehaugh told me is right, he’s the boy who set the fire in the first place, knowing it would kill everyone in the house, himself and Jennifer Beasley, too.’

  ‘It didn’t, though, did it. They both survived, otherwise we’d no’ be here.’

  ‘Yes, they survived. If ending up in a place like this can be called survival.’

  Harrison looked around the dingy hallway. ‘And you think he might be the last victim? Wouldn’t his DNA be on the NCA files, too?’

  McLean started to climb the stairs. ‘Funny you should say that. I suggested it to our new friend DCI Featherstonehaugh and he said the file had become corrupted. He also said that the fellow who lives here is something of a genius with computers and hacking. Left me to join up the dots.’

  No one answered a knock at either of the two doors on the first landing. McLean carried on up the stairs regardless. He couldn’t have said what drew him, some sixth sense, something deeply ingrained by his years of detective work. Maybe it was just his nose that led him to the furthest door from the top of the stairs. Like all the others, there was nothing as sophisticated as a name plate, not even a torn-off strip of paper with a name scrawled on it in biro and fixed to the rough wooden door with sticky tape. He reached for the handle, then paused, dug a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket and pulled them on. Only then did he reach once more and twist the handle. The latch clicked, and the unlocked door swung open on to darkness.

  ‘Anyone home?’

  Silence greeted them, oozing out of the flat like warm tar. The air was stale, as if no one had breathed it in many a day. McLean stepped through the tiny hall reminiscent of so many Edinburgh tenement flats. Doors led to a tiny kitchen, tinier shower room, bedroom and surprisingly spacious living room. The decor could perhaps best be described as ‘previous owner’, but at least it was tidy.

  ‘Smells like some of the student flats I used to visit. You know, the ones where there’s only boys?’

  McLean didn’t. He’d bought his place in Newington after one term in halls of residence, lived there on his own until someone had introduced him to Phil. Even with the two of them it was still more than big enough. He knew what Harrison meant though.

  ‘I was thinking more Grumpy Bob’s place in Sciennes, but maybe a bit tidier.’ He stepped into the narrow galley kitchen, its rotten sash window looking out at a scrubby communal garden to the back of the block. The sink was empty, a single washed mug and plate on the drainer, cutlery in a little metal pot with holes in it. When he ran a finger under the tap, it came back dry. No one had been here in a while.

  The bedroom told much the same tale. It was clear a man lived here alone, the pile of dirty clothes heaped in one corner gave that much away. Otherwise it was nondescript, a place for sleeping, and not often at that. The living room was clearly where Edward Gosford spent most of his time.

  An ancient television sat in one corner, opposite a sofa that looked like it had been rescued from a skip at least twice, and squat coffee table strewn with books and magazines. Set up at the opposite end of the room to the window, a wide table had been pressed into use as a desk. Two blank screens towered over a jumble of keyboards, trackpads, books and jotter pads. Screwed to the wall beside the desk, a whiteboard bore many layers of scribbled notes, a few receipts and the menus for some local takeaways attached to the bottom of it with colourful magnets.

  ‘Looks like someone had a bit of
an accident, sir.’

  McLean turned around to see Harrison crouched down beside the sofa. She pointed a finger to where a cafetière lay smashed on the floor. Coffee grounds piled on the carpet, surrounded by a dull brown stain. A mug on the table was empty, its inside clean if a little stained, and when he bent down and rubbed at the floor his glove came away still white.

  ‘Happened long enough ago for it all to dry out. Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here in a while.’

  ‘A week perhaps?’ Harrison didn’t have to add what had happened that long ago.

  ‘Maybe.’ McLean put the mug back down on the table, glanced at the books. Mostly technical titles for programming languages he’d never heard of. A small stack of computer magazines had been placed to one side, a slim smartphone tucked under the top cover. Not the sort of thing a person would leave behind when heading out, surely?

  ‘Don’t suppose this has got any charge in it if it’s been sitting here a week.’ He pressed the button on the front and was surprised when the phone beeped, lit up. The battery icon was almost completely empty, but what shook him more was the image on the lock screen. Two people standing in front of a brand-new truck, smiling as they held up an industry award of some kind. The phone squawked, then the screen blanked out as it died, but not before McLean recognized one of the people in it.

  ‘This is Mike Finlay’s phone.’ He held it up for Harrison to see, only then noticing that she had crossed over to the desk. The light from the two screens washed over her face as she tapped at the keyboard with one gloved finger.

  ‘How was it we came by this address, sir?’ She swivelled one of the screens around for McLean to see. It took a moment for him to step closer, longer still to start making sense of the multiple windows stacked on top of each other.

  ‘Someone’s been busy.’

  Harrison leaned forward, tried a couple of the mice lurking in the detritus on the desk top, then found a trackpad. She tapped a couple of times, minimizing some of the windows, bringing up others, eyes flicking this way and that far more swiftly than McLean could keep up with. ‘There’s stuff here Lofty really needs to see. Financials, contracts, emails. Oh my.’