Dead Men's Bones (Inspector Mclean 4)

by James Oswald

  ‘I know it’s been tampered with. Look.’ Ritchie pointed at the edge of the screen, where a handful of sockets had been artfully designed into the casing. Most were empty, but one held what looked like a cheap USB stick. ‘I don’t think they meant to leave that behind. If I’m not mistaken it’s a wiper. Cleans out the hard drive and fills it up with noughts and ones. There’s this, too.’ She pushed herself up out of the chair and walked over to a pair of filing cabinets standing beside the wall. Pulled open a drawer.

  ‘First off, they weren’t locked. Lots of empty folders. They’ve taken the little name tags as well.’

  McLean turned slowly on his heels, taking in the whole room. How long had it been since the call had first come in about Weatherly’s death? He should have guessed, really. The man was important, sat on select committees, dealt with state secrets.

  ‘Bloody Cloak and Dagger Squad have been here already, haven’t they?’

  Ritchie bobbed her head just once. ‘Looks like it, aye.’

  17

  It was dark when McLean finally let himself in through the back door, but then it had been dark since about four o’clock, many hours before he’d finished writing up his visit to Weatherly’s New Town house and adding it to the growing report. No one could accuse them of not being thorough; just a shame they had found out precisely bugger all. But then, he suspected that had always been the intention.

  Flicking on the kitchen lights, he was surprised not to find Mrs McCutcheon’s cat waiting for him. He knew it slept by the Aga most of the day, but as soon as it heard his car on the gravel outside, it would wake up, leap on to the table and start to clean its arse with its tongue. He had no idea why it would want to greet him every evening this way, but then cats were supposed to be a mystery.

  And now it was nowhere to be seen.

  He dumped the takeaway pizza box on the table, alongside the pile of folders he’d brought home with him. At least he’d have a bit of peace while he was eating. Maybe if he went and lit the fire in the library now it would be warm enough in an hour or so to sit and read there, too. But first the ritual of picking up the post.

  Only when he got to the front door, there was nothing on the mat. He switched the outside light on, opened the door and checked there. Peered through the letterbox, and even under the old wooden chest that was full of mismatched wellington boots and worn-out coats. Nothing. Well, it was always possible there’d been no post. No junk mail catalogues, no offers for credit cards, no charities tugging at his heartstrings with pictures of starving children or abused animals. Possible, but very unlikely. Unless the postmen were on strike.

  It was only as he was walking back across the hall to the kitchen that he noticed the light under the library door. It wasn’t an electric light, more the flickering orange glow of a fire. A chill blossomed in his stomach that was nothing to do with the snow lying on the ground outside, and everything to do with memories of smoke and heat and a man screaming as the flames melted his skin. He’d had far too much experience of fires recently. But how the hell could anything in there be burning?

  He approached the door carefully and quietly, listening out for the telltale sound of flames crackling with glee as they devoured his grandmother’s irreplaceable collection of antique books. There was none, and when he placed the back of his hand on the oak panelling of the door, it was as cold as the rest of the room. He twisted the handle quietly, feeling for the point when the latch released, then gently eased the door open as silently as its old hinges would allow. Poked his head around the doorjamb.

  ‘Ah. Inspector. You’re home at last. They told me you worked ridiculous hours, but I didn’t believe them. More fool me, eh?’

  It took a while for McLean’s eyes to adjust to the low light, even longer for him to understand the scene laid out before him. The fire was lit, coals burning merrily and filling the room with a welcome heat. Mrs McCutcheon’s cat lay on the tatty old sheepskin rug in front of the hearth, its tail twitching every so often as it dreamed of the death of mice. On the occasional table beside his favourite high-backed leather armchair, one of his bottles of Scottish Malt Whisky Society single-cask malts stood alongside a half-empty glass and a small jug of water. And in the armchair itself sat a man.

  He was a stranger, of that much McLean was sure. And yet at the same time he was almost certain he knew who the man was.

  ‘You found the coal. And the whisky, I see.’ He stepped fully into the room, closed the door behind him and flicked the switch that would bring the wall lights on. It was low light, but enough compared to the near-darkness of before that the man flinched and squinted his eyes.

  ‘The coal was easy. The whisky less so.’ The man took a small sip, tilting the glass to a newly glowing bulb. ‘I can see why you keep it hidden, though. Damned good stuff.’

  ‘MI6? MI5? Or is this some new division of Special Branch I’ve never heard of?’ McLean went to the bookcase that hid the drinks cabinet, opened it up and helped himself to a clean glass. The man in the armchair watched him as he poured himself a drink, added a little water, held it up to his nose and let the aroma settle his nerves. Fright had long since turned to anger, but neither would help him here.

  ‘It’s not important, really. Should be enough to know we’re on the same side.’

  McLean let out an unconvincing bark of a laugh. ‘You break into my house, steal my whisky and then try to tell me we’re on the same side?’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll find any evidence of breaking in, Inspector.’ The man raised his glass in salute. ‘But you’ve got me on the whisky. Anyway. What else was I supposed to do for the past two hours? I thought you were never coming home.’

  ‘You could have phoned. You could have come to the station and spoken to me there. I assume this is about Weatherly?’

  ‘Ah, the incisive mind of the detective. Yes. This is about Weatherly.’

  ‘You lot already went over his flat, wiped his computer. Is that just standard operating procedure, or did he actually have something to hide?’

  ‘Let’s just say a bit of both, shall we? Leave it at that.’

  ‘You can say what you like, really. The investigation’s done. Case is good as closed. Weatherly killed his family, then topped himself. The whys are for the press to speculate about. We’re no longer interested.’

  ‘Oh, but I rather think you are.’ The man took another drink, deeper this time, letting out a little gasp of satisfaction as the strong whisky burned its way down his throat. ‘I don’t believe for a minute that the great Detective Inspector Anthony McLean doesn’t want to know why a man like Weatherly would do such terrible things.’

  ‘What I want isn’t all that important, really. I want you out of my house, but I don’t expect to get that until you’ve told me whatever it was you couldn’t say through official channels.’

  ‘Touché, Inspector.’ The man levered himself out of the chair, drained the last of the whisky and placed the glass carefully on a coaster on the table. He was nondescript, the perfect physical shape for his line of work. Average height, average build, no obviously striking features. His clothes were comfortable but tidy: slightly baggy trousers, checked shirt and tie under a V-neck pullover, tweed jacket just a little bit too well tailored for a teacher. He might have been about the same age as McLean, but then again he might have been anything from late twenties to mid-fifties. He was bland, no better way of putting it.

  ‘I came to tell you not to stop looking into Weatherly’s case.’

  McLean took a moment to process the information. ‘Not to stop. You mean to keep going?’

  ‘Precisely. That keen intellect again.’ The man smiled like a parent congratulating a child on its first successful solo potty flight.

  ‘I can’t once they close the case.’

  ‘Oh, they will. And soon. But when’s that ever stopped you before?’ The man looked genuinely surprised.

  ‘That’s a low blow for someone who wants me to do them a favour
.’

  ‘It’s true, though. You have something of a reputation.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ McLean slammed his glass down on the mantelpiece, startling Mrs McCutcheon’s cat awake. ‘Go on. Get out before I throw you out.’

  ‘I’m serious, Inspector. You have to keep digging on this one.’ The man from the secret service started walking towards the door.

  ‘Dig what? There’s nothing to dig. Man goes mad, kills his family, then shoots himself. End of. Now out.’

  ‘You don’t really believe that any more than I do.’ The man opened the door wide. As if on cue, lights from a car swept across the window looking out from the hallway on to the drive. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

  McLean said nothing, watched the man walk across the hallway with parade square precision. He didn’t turn, just stepped through into the porch. A moment later the front door clunked shut, and a moment after that the car crunched away into the night. Only then did Mrs McCutcheon’s cat stand up, stretch and yawn, revealing a face filled with far too many teeth. It wove its way between McLean’s legs, tail twitching a need to be stroked.

  ‘Turncoat,’ he said, stepping over it on his way to the table beside the armchair. He’d run out of latex gloves, but there was a clear evidence bag in one of his jacket pockets. He carefully collected up the empty whisky glass in the bag, sealing it tight for later analysis. Have to beg a favour off someone in SEB. Process it with a burglary investigation. Chances were the prints wouldn’t turn up anything, but he was pissed off enough with the lot of them that he didn’t much care.

  It was as he was picking up the whisky bottle to put it back in the cupboard that McLean noticed the small pile of letters on the table. None appeared to have been opened, but knowing the people he was dealing with, they probably had special laser pens that could read a letter without opening the envelope. It wouldn’t have done them much good; these were all flyers and bills.

  Except one. On the bottom of the pile, a plain brown A4 envelope had no stamp, no address written on it. Flipping it over, he could see it hadn’t been sealed either. Inside was a set of photographs. The first one had him slumping down into his seat, the second and he was reaching for his whisky glass. By the time he’d reached the last one, he knew he couldn’t leave the Weatherly case alone.

  18

  ‘You wanted to see me, sir.’

  McLean stood at the open doorway to Duguid’s office. He’d barely arrived at the station that morning when a nervous young uniform constable had scurried up and issued the summons. Given what he and Ritchie had found the day before, and his visit from Special Branch, he had more than a suspicion of what the detective superintendent was going to say.

  Duguid scowled; more or less his permanent expression these days. His desk was strewn with papers, a pile of reports stacked precariously at one end. On the floor beside it were more, and a few boxes from the archives. The overall effect was to make him look almost like a detective.

  ‘Come in. Close the door.’ Barked orders, sergeant-major style. At least that much hadn’t changed. McLean did as he was told, advancing on the desk as if there might be a machine gun nest hiding in among the heaps of folders.

  ‘The Weatherly case. Where are we with it?’

  The ‘we’ didn’t go unnoticed, but McLean let it slide. Something was bothering Duguid; best not to poke him until it was obvious exactly what that was.

  ‘We’ve interviewed all his close friends, business associates, the usual suspects. Forensics are still processing the scene, but there’s no doubt he killed his two girls, shot his wife and then turned the gun on himself.’ McLean paused, and considered the photographs he’d been given and what he was going to do about them. ‘Nothing obvious to explain why he did it. His business is in good shape, politics was working for him. He pretty much had it all to live for, really.’

  ‘So you’ve got fuck all.’

  ‘A thorough fuck all, sir’

  ‘Don’t take the piss, McLean. That’s my job.’

  ‘I can keep digging, if that’s what you want.’

  Duguid’s scowl deepened. His anger was obvious, but it wasn’t directed at McLean, which was confusing.

  ‘What I want seems to be irrelevant these days. Your report needs to be in by the end of the week. Wrap it up and stick a bow on it for the Fiscal.’

  McLean stood silent for a long while as the words trickled through. Not what he’d been hoping to hear at all, and yet exactly what his strange nocturnal visitor had said would happen. If anything, that was worse than having to stop; knowing that the decision had been made some time earlier and he was just a tiny pawn in some greater game.

  ‘You want me to close down the investigation?’ he asked eventually.

  ‘What? Did someone just take away your power of reason? Yes, McLean, I want you to close down the investigation.’ Duguid rubbed at his eyes with the tips of his fingers, pressing them hard as if he were trying to remove an unwanted image from his brain. ‘There’s nothing to be gained from digging any further. We can’t arrest a dead man, and we’re not going to bring those girls back.’

  ‘What about the press?’

  ‘What about them? Soon as the PF OKs it, you can schedule a conference and tell them what you know. Leave it to them to figure out what tipped Weatherly over the edge. That’s what they deal in, after all. Supposition, half-truths, outright lies.’

  McLean paused for a moment, wondering what was the best thing to do. Given a few days he could get to the bottom of the photographs, slot them neatly into the investigation. But he wasn’t being given a few days. That was the whole point. He pulled the envelope full of photographs out of his jacket pocket, unfolded it and threw it down on Duguid’s desk.

  ‘Had an interesting visit at home last night. Some spook from Special Branch. Told me the case would be shut down and gave me those.’

  Duguid’s eyes narrowed as he stared at McLean, no doubt trying to work out whether this was a sick joke or something. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Have a look. It’s distasteful, but I doubt it’ll scar you for life.’

  The detective superintendent slowly reached for the envelope, flipped up the flap and peered inside. Then with a sigh he pulled out the photographs. They were creased down the middle where McLean had folded the whole thing over to fit in his pocket. Duguid took a moment flattening them out before really looking at them.

  ‘What the fuck?’ He looked up at McLean, anger burning in his eyes. ‘Where’d you get these? Who is this?’

  ‘That first photograph is Weatherly with his two children. The woman’s not his wife, though, it’s his PA. Jennifer Denton.’

  ‘And these?’ Duguid shuffled rapidly through the remaining photographs. Images that were most certainly not safe for work. Unless you worked in Vice.

  ‘They come from Weatherly’s homes,’ McLean said. ‘The – ahem – athletic ones with Miss Denton are in his New Town place, the rest are the house in Fife.’

  Duguid flicked back and forth through the photographs a couple of times more, then shuffled them all together and slid them into the envelope. Pushed it back across the desk towards McLean.

  ‘Thought you said there was nothing obvious to explain why he did it. Seems pretty fucking obvious to me. Weatherly knew this sordid little secret of his was coming out and couldn’t face the thought of losing it all. I’d say look for whoever was trying to blackmail him, but I don’t suppose it’ll do any good.’

  ‘That was my immediate thought too, sir. And if I was looking, the first person in my sights would be the PA, Jennifer Denton.’

  ‘I sense a but coming.’ Duguid slumped back in his chair to a creaking of leather and springs.

  ‘Well, it’s obvious. Anyone who’s read anything about Weatherly would know he’s not the sort of man to give in to blackmail. Not for something like this.’ McLean picked up the envelope, folded it over and shoved it back in his inside pocket.

  ‘You’re an expert on that the
n, are you?’ Duguid didn’t even try to hide the sneer in his voice. ‘Knew him well?’

  ‘I met him a couple of times, but no, I didn’t know him well. I think you’re missing the point though, sir. There’s blackmail in these photographs, sure, but it’s Weatherly doing the blackmailing, not the other way around.’

  ‘Fuck me, you make things complicated, McLean. What are you going on about?’

  ‘Weatherly was influential. Lots of friends in high places. Lots of influence. I’m guessing this is just one way he went about making sure he got what he wanted.’

  ‘What? Getting caught on camera shagging his secretary?’

  ‘No. Though shagging his secretary when he knew it was being filmed suggests someone who didn’t much care if it got out. And that’s the point, sir. He knew he was being filmed. You can’t look at that last photograph and not see it. He’s staring right at the bloody camera. He believes he’s invincible, totally in control. If you want to know why he killed himself, then we need to find out what shook that belief. Trust me. It wasn’t these photographs.’

  ‘It’s all academic, anyway. Like I said before, the investigation has run its course. We can’t spend taxpayers’ money on some wild goose chase. From what I’ve read, Andrew Weatherly was a world-class shit. He’s taken up enough of our time.’

  McLean let his shoulders slump. No point pushing it any further, really. Duguid had been leaned on by someone much higher up the food chain.

  ‘Those two girls deserved more. Their mother too.’

  Duguid stared at him with piggy little eyes, red-rimmed and tired. ‘I couldn’t agree more. But what we deserve and what we get are rarely the same thing.’

  McLean nodded, not sure whether he could say anything more. He turned away, headed for the door. He was about to close it behind him when Duguid spoke again.

  ‘Leave it open, will you.’ McLean looked back at the superintendent as he slid the wedge in with his foot. Duguid was scowling again, but there was something different about it this time.