by James Oswald
Mrs McCutcheon’s cat had taken up its habitual spot on the table, sitting beside the sugar bowl and the propped-up envelope of incriminating photographs. He reached over and gave it a scratch behind the ears, and for once it didn’t try to claw the veins out of his wrist.
‘That’s from Emma,’ he said, which earned him a purr loud enough to vibrate the spoon in the sugar bowl. McLean smiled, glad of the company, and set about making himself a mug of tea.
23
‘Still suffering with the leg, I see.’
Early morning after a fitful night’s sleep, visited by nightmares of dead children trying desperately to wake their mother. McLean had hoped for a quiet couple of hours getting to grips with the tattooed man investigation, but his smartphone had chimed the appointment, same as it ever did. He had toyed with the idea of just not turning up. After the last session, he was fairly sure Hilton would let it slide. But annoying though the man was, he did occasionally have insights into the human mind, and there was something McLean wanted to ask him.
‘It’s healing. Doesn’t seem to like the cold weather so much.’
Hilton nodded. ‘Wasn’t sure I was going to see you today.’
‘Wasn’t sure I was going to come.’
‘So what changed your mind?’
McLean shrugged. ‘Nothing better to do, I guess.’
Hilton slumped back in his chair and ran a hand across his stubbly head. ‘They closed the Weatherly case down on you.’
McLean managed not to smile as Hilton picked up the thread he wanted followed. ‘It’d run its course. We know he did it, where, how, when. Nothing else to do, really.’
Hilton raised an eyebrow. ‘You left out why.’
‘That’s your department, doc. Not mine. What makes a man drug his children and then smother them in their beds? Why would he take a rifle and shoot his wife in the head? And what possesses someone to stick a gun under their chin and pull the trigger?’ McLean dangled the details of the case in front of Hilton like bait. He knew the psychiatrist had wanted to be involved from the start. Judging by his expression, he’d not managed to get anything from his usual sources so far.
‘He shot himself, you say. With the same rifle he used to shoot his wife?’
‘Not long afterwards, if the evidence is to be trusted.’
‘And the children. Drugged first? That’s … interesting.’ Hilton picked up a pen, began writing on the notepad that was arranged squarely along the centre line of his immaculately tidy desk. ‘And he killed them before his wife?’
‘It’s not important, though, is it? I mean, he killed them all anyway.’
‘Oh, but it’s vitally important, Tony. The order is everything. The method.’ Hilton scribbled some more, his excitement evident in every movement. McLean was jealous of his enthusiasm, fuelled purely by curiosity and not yet tainted by the politics of the whole thing.
‘So what do you think makes a man do something like this, then?’ He tried to make the question as casual as possible. It wasn’t necessary. Hilton was beyond noticing such subtleties.
‘Ah, the eternal question. Despair, of course. But it’s more than that. It’s a special kind of megalomania. Almost childish, really. If I can’t have it, then no one can.’ Hilton made little bunny ear quotation marks with his fingers as he spoke.
‘But he had it. He had everything, as far as I can tell. Glamorous wife, successful career, beautiful children. He was even popular, for a politician at least.’ McLean counted out the points one by one, putting extra emphasis on the last.
‘Then I would suggest that someone threatened to take it all away from him. Blackmail, perhaps. I can’t imagine someone like Weatherly wouldn’t have had one or two skeletons in his closet. If there was something that could ruin him, something that might even have put him in jail perhaps, then he might well have destroyed it all rather than face the consequences.’ Hilton finished writing, put the pen carefully down and leaned back in his chair. ‘It’s an extreme psychopathy, but all successful men are psychopaths to a greater or lesser extent.’
McLean said nothing, letting Hilton believe he was thinking about what he’d said. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t already considered, and from a position of having a lot more facts to hand. There was no doubt that someone could have blackmailed Weatherly if they had wanted to, except that from what he knew of the man, Weatherly would more likely have gone public and relished the fight than give in. Even in the face of the photographs, the sex parties.
No, he wasn’t at all convinced by Hilton’s explanation … which was a shame, as it meant he’d have to keep looking.
Funerals had never been his thing. He understood the need to remember the dead, comfort the bereaved, but the whole ceremony left McLean cold. He wasn’t sure either how Andrew Weatherly could be given a Christian burial, given that the man had taken his own life. Surely he should have been discarded at a crossroads on unconsecrated ground, not afforded the closest thing to a state funeral you could get without actually inviting the Queen.
Perhaps it was the modern way, forgiveness. Or maybe it was the old way back in fashion after two thousand years. Whatever the reason, the church was full, voices raised for the hymns, heads bowed for the prayers. McLean stood in a small side-chapel off the main nave, grateful that all the pews had been taken by the time he had arrived. It gave him the opportunity to scan the congregation for familiar faces.
Jennifer Denton was there, of course. She’d organized the whole thing with the efficiency that must have made her such a good personal assistant. Weatherly had no immediate family beyond that which he had so cruelly dispatched, but from the look of it a few hopeful distant cousins had shown up, no doubt with an eye to any inheritance. Morag McIntosh, as she had been before her marriage, had a sister who could have been her identical twin were she not twice her size. There were a lot of bankers and financiers in the middle rows; he could tell them by the way they kept looking at their watches, glancing from side to side, anxious for this to be over so they could get back to the office and the next deal. McLean wondered why they’d bothered coming at all.
And there were politicians. Lots of them. All accompanied by the many hangers-on, special advisers and whatever else was needed to grease the cogs of state. The only police presence, apart from himself and DC MacBride, were the security teams needed to make sure nothing untoward happened to the great and the good as they celebrated the life of a man who had murdered three people, two of them children. No sign of Detective Superintendent Tennant from Fife, or anyone from the Police Liaison Committee that Weatherly had chaired. Some people obviously had a sense of self-preservation.
McLean found it easy to tune out the service, barely listened to the eulogies and didn’t even bother to mime along to the hymns. Religion had never been his thing, and that wasn’t why he was here anyway. Towards the end he moved quietly to a position by the door where he could get a better view of the people as they left behind the coffins; two big, two small, carried out to the churchyard and the Weatherly family crypt.
The press were waiting outside like flies attracted by the smell of a well-rotting carcass. Television reporters stood in a line down the pavement across the road, each doing their piece to camera just out of shot of the next. Closer in, the local paparazzi were shouting names and flashing away like it was some celebrity gala or film premiere. So much for respecting the dead. McLean spotted Jo Dalgliesh, leather overcoat tied tight, notebook at the ready as she tried to pump an opposition spokesman for a juicy quote. Her face was alight with the thrill of the chase. Better the politician on the receiving end of that than him.
It was as the assembled great and good were chatting around the gates, waiting for chauffeur-driven cars to arrive and take them to the wake, that McLean saw the woman. He couldn’t have said what caught his attention; just something about her stance, perhaps. She was about twenty yards away, whispering something into the ear of a junior minister, one black gloved hand on the bemused m
an’s shoulder. The junior minister laughed, a braying like a kicked mule that McLean could hear quite clearly despite the hubbub of conversations all around. The woman patted his shoulder once more, then turned away, her eyes scanning over the crowd, looking for someone. They found him and locked on. She frowned, trying to place him, then nodded once and turned away. McLean shook his own head, unsure exactly what had just happened.
‘We done here, sir?’ DC MacBride’s innocent question broke through the chill fog clinging to him. McLean looked around at the departing people. Not many left, just a few still chatting with the priest, who looked like he wanted to get away too.
‘Reckon so. You fancy going to the wake?’
MacBride’s expression was enough of answer. McLean fished his car keys out of his pocket. Tossed them at the startled constable. ‘OK then, you drive. You can drop me off at the hotel on your way back to the station. There’s bugger all parking round there anyway.’
MacBride was a nervous driver, constantly fidgeting with the gearstick, the indicator stalk, the steering wheel. He’d spent a fussy age adjusting the seat before they’d set off, but even so he leaned forward, his back not actually touching the leather. McLean knew that the constable had attended an advanced driving course, so it must have been the fact that he was driving the boss’s car.
‘You heard anything from Ritchie today?’ he asked, as they inched forward in heavy traffic.
‘What? Oh, no sir. Nothing.’
‘Any idea what’s up with her? Don’t think I’ve ever seen her sick before.’
‘There’s a nasty flu bug been doing the rounds. Could be that.’
‘I guess.’ McLean stared at the grey sky just barely visible between the tops of the high tenements and the edge of the windscreen. It was certainly that time of year when people succumbed. Something to do with the long nights and short, grey days battering the immune system into submission. On the other hand, Ritchie was from Aberdeen; she should have been able to cope with a little snow. ‘Hope she’s better soon. It’s a pain trying to get anything done without her.’
MacBride didn’t say ‘tell me about it’, but McLean could see the words forming in a little bubble above the constable’s head. Given that he was probably picking up most of the slack it seemed fair enough.
‘We heard anything back from the military about our tattooed man?’
MacBride relaxed a little, back on familiar territory. ‘Not yet, sir. It was on my list of things to chase up. Hoping to get the DNA database match done too. Would’ve been done already but there was some mix-up at the lab. Had to get a fresh sample done.’
‘What sort of mix-up? It’s not like Angus to get his samples muddled.’
‘Way I heard it, couldn’t have been Dr Cadwallader.’ MacBride sped up to make use of a gap that had appeared in the traffic, then let out a little ‘eep’ of surprise as the car accelerated a lot faster than he was expecting, the steering wheel twitching in his hands.
‘Gently does it, Constable. She’s got a bit more grunt than grip, especially on these roads.’ McLean grinned once he realized the situation was under control.
‘Sorry, sir. Just not used to it.’ They were approaching the hotel where Weatherly’s wake was being held, and the traffic snarled even worse as dozens of chauffeurs vied with each other to get their cargo as close to the front entrance as possible.
‘Pull over, I’ll walk from here. Probably be safer that way. See you back at the station in an hour or so.’
MacBride did as he was told, even managing to stop the car just past a large bank of slushy snow. McLean climbed out into fresh, cold air, was about to close the door when something occurred to him.
‘You said it couldn’t have been Angus’s fault, the mix-up. How so?’
‘He only deals with dead people, sir. The first sample they tested had the DNA of a goat.’
24
Considerably more people had come to drink Andrew Weatherly’s wine than had shown up to pay their last respects at the church. That was the way of these things, McLean supposed. It wasn’t as if the man was going to complain. The wake had something of the air of a wedding party, only with more sombre clothes. There wasn’t any dancing, either.
‘Inspector. How good of you to come.’ Jennifer Denton looked tired, but she’d still made the effort to appear smart. People weren’t queueing up to offer her their condolences, he noticed. Too busy networking or looking for the next scoop.
‘I wasn’t sure whether I should. Normally we come along to see who turns up, if there’s an investigation ongoing. But, well, it’s all officially done and dusted now.’
‘And yet here you are.’ Miss Denton grabbed a couple of wine glasses from a passing waiter, handed one over and took a sizeable gulp of the other. ‘To be honest, I’m rather glad.’
‘Are you coping all right?’ McLean tried not to make it obvious that he wasn’t going to drink his wine.
‘Keeping busy’s the best thing. I don’t like to have to stop and think.’
‘You’ll have to eventually. I mean, once this is all done, the will sorted …’
‘That’ll give me a year or five then.’ Miss Denton took another swig and a single drop of red escaped, landing on her white blouse like a blood splatter.
‘That long?’ Having not long tidied away the last few pieces of his own inheritance following the death of his grandmother almost eighteen months earlier, McLean was well aware that the wheels of the legal profession ground slow and fine. Still, five years sounded like something of an exaggeration.
‘If I’m lucky. Could be ten.’ Miss Denton pointed over to the far side of the room, where a cluster of unhappy-looking people were studiously not talking to each other. They looked quite out of place among the politicians and businessmen. ‘The jackals are circling. Drew’s will’s being read out later on, and they’re none of them going to be very happy about it.’
‘You know what’s in it?’
‘Of course. I’m one of the executors.’
‘And a beneficiary?’ The question slipped out before McLean could stop himself. The detective in him taking over. ‘Sorry. None of my business.’
‘Not supposed to say anything until it’s been read.’ Miss Denton tapped the side of her nose with a finger. The nail was painted a deep glossy red, but the end of it was cracked and ridged. ‘But don’t worry. It’ll be made public tomorrow. Drew was very old-fashioned that way.’
McLean said nothing, wasn’t really sure what he could say. Andrew Weatherly’s will was of interest, of course. He’d been a very rich man, so what became of his wealth mattered. Except that the reasons it mattered to McLean were of no importance any more. He wasn’t looking for a suspect, so there was no need to seek a motive.
‘So why did you come here then, Inspector?’ Miss Denton put her empty glass down on a passing tray, swapping it for a full one with a surprising dexterity.
‘I rather suspect he’s come here looking for me.’
The words cut through him like a stiletto to the soul. The voice was deep, almost husky, and yet unmistakably female. McLean turned to see who had spoken, but he already knew. Close up the woman was striking, that was the best he could manage. She wasn’t beautiful in the classic sense of the word; no supermodel like Morag Weatherly had been. But there was something about her that he could imagine men killing each other over. He’d noticed her hair from afar, straight and black like Elizabeth Taylor’s wig in Cleopatra, only without the gold braids. It framed a face of purest, flawless white skin, high cheekbones and eyes that hinted at a Middle Eastern background. He would have said she was in her early thirties, but something about the way she held herself suggested a much greater age kept at bay by far more effective means than Jennifer Denton’s hair dye and foundation. She wore black, unchanged from the funeral. Only her blouse was red, darkest claret as if she had spilled a whole bottle on it compared with Miss Denton’s single drop. Her blouse matched her cherry-dark lips, which McLean found he�
��d been staring at for far too long without realizing. He looked away in embarrassment.
‘Jennifer, are you going to introduce us?’ The woman spoke softly, but still her voice sounded like it could flay the skin off a man. A sandstorm in the desert.
‘Mrs Saifre. I’m sorry. This is Detective Inspector McLean.’ Miss Denton sounded afraid. She looked afraid, paling visibly under Mrs Saifre’s stare and shrinking away from the woman.
‘Ah yes. Of course you are. I’ve heard so much about you.’ Mrs Saifre held out a hand and for a moment, McLean wasn’t sure what he should do with it. That voice filled his head, chasing away all ability to think straight. Possibly just a little too slow to be polite, he pulled himself together, took the hand in his own and shook it gently. The tiniest flicker of disappointment played around those deep black eyes, and then she smiled, squeezing his hand with a grip that crackled the bones in his knuckles.
‘You knew Mr Weatherly?’ McLean asked.
‘Knew him? I practically made him. Isn’t that so, Jennifer?’ Mrs Saifre finally let go of McLean’s hand. He let it drop to his side, trying to hide it as he flexed his fingers, checking for any broken bones.
‘Mrs Saifre was one of Drew’s first investors. She’s a major stockholder in Weatherly Asset Management.’ Miss Denton spoke the words grudgingly, as if she were willing it not to be so.
‘Mr Weatherly’s death must have come as a shock then, Mrs Saifre,’ McLean said. ‘The nature of it as much as anything.’
‘A shock.’ Mrs Saifre rolled the word around her mouth, as if it had a flavour she’d never tasted before. ‘Yes. It was. Andrew always struck me as the level-headed type. Not one for rash gestures. Oh, he could take risks, but they were always calculated in his favour. Or my favour, of course.’
