Dead Men's Bones (Inspector Mclean 4)

by James Oswald

  ‘Come on, Dalgliesh. You just want there to be a conspiracy so you can get your story. We closed the investigation because we were done with it. The evidence was all there. It’s not as if someone else shot Morag and suffocated the girls. There wasn’t anyone forcing Weatherly to do what he did.’

  ‘You sure of that?’ Dalgliesh took another drag on her cigarette, tilted her head back and let the smoke billow out into the air. McLean watched it climb, noticing the pair of CCTV cameras on a nearby lamp post. One faced away from them, the other seemed angled deliberately to take in Weatherly’s front door. Well, he was an important man. Maybe it had been set up that way on purpose.

  ‘Look. We interviewed everyone he worked with, both in business and politics. No one noticed him being under any pressure. There’s only so much time we can spare, even for someone like Weatherly with his influential friends. Hell, if we threw all the resources of Police Scotland at it, you’d be writing pieces about dead junkies in Leith not getting a tenth of the attention.’

  ‘It’s still a stitch-up, and you know it. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.’ Dalgliesh nodded at the building again.

  McLean considered explaining exactly how he’d come to be there, then realized it would just be a waste of breath. ‘Was there anything in particular you wanted?’

  ‘From you? Not really, no. I was just having a look at the place for background, soaking up a bit of the ambience. I’ll be doing a piece on Weatherly for the weekend supplements. Helps to be able to picture the place when you’re writing, you know. Really didn’t expect to see you here.’

  ‘Well, I’ll leave you to your work, then.’ McLean shoved his hands in his pockets and started to walk away.

  ‘Why’d they give it to you?’ Dalgliesh’s question stopped him in his tracks.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why’d they put you in charge? Man like Weatherly, you’d think an assistant chief constable would be SIO. I didn’t see anyone more senior than you at the funeral. You’ve headed up all the press conferences.’

  ‘Detective Superintendent Tennant was SIO.’

  ‘Aye, in Fife. And he never made it to the funeral either.’

  ‘It’s not in the job spec, you know. “Must attend the funeral of all murder victims.” ’

  ‘Aye, I ken that. But you do anyway.’

  ‘If we think there’s something to be gained from it. If we’re interested in seeing who turns up.’

  ‘So why’d you go then? If everything was all fine and tickety-boo?’ Dalgliesh accompanied the odd phrase with a wiggly-finger motion that scattered ash from her dying cigarette on to the pavement.

  ‘Professional curiosity?’

  ‘Aye, I heard that about you. Never did know when to let something lie.’

  ‘There a point to all this? Only I need to get back to the station. Just because we’re done with Weatherly doesn’t mean there’s nothing else to worry about.’

  Dalgliesh shrugged. ‘Just thinking out loud really. No offence, but you’re hardly the obvious choice for the job. And Jack Tennant’s no’ exactly any better. A washed-out super from Fife Constabulary just a few months off retirement? That’s hardly putting your best man on the case.’ Dalgliesh took a last long drag on her cigarette, holding on to the smoke like a jealous lover before finally, reluctantly, letting it go into the cold air.

  ‘No one up high wanted to touch this ’cause it’s got shit all over it. You mark my words, Inspector. They’re setting you up for a fall.’

  27

  Darkness was falling over the city by the time McLean made it back to the station. He’d considered getting a taxi from George Street, then remembered the reason his ride in the patrol car had been cut short and decided walking was better. Judging by the noise of angry horns and the long lines of unmoving cars and buses, he’d made the right decision.

  It gave him time to think, too. For all that she was an annoying wee shite, Jo Dalgliesh was a shrewd reporter with lots of good contacts and a knack for putting all the pieces together, however far apart and apparently unrelated they might be. It didn’t help that he was all too aware of the political machinations surrounding and directing the Weatherly case, either. He knew damned well that Duguid would have convinced his superiors that he was expendable and so should be put in charge of the case; there to take the fall when necessary. Fife had been fortunate enough to have a more senior officer who was about to leave anyway. That seemed a shitty way to treat a detective of Jack Tennant’s long service and good reputation.

  And, of course, there was the double bluff that Duguid was playing. It was almost enough to make McLean stick to the rules like a militant shop foreman, but he had to admit, however grudgingly, that the detective superintendent had got the measure of him. There was no way he could leave the case alone until he knew that no stone had been left unturned. As much as anything else, he needed to know everything he could possibly find out in order to protect himself when it all went tits up. Dislike Jo Dalgliesh as much as he did, he still had to agree with her on that point. This wasn’t finished yet, and when it did end it wasn’t going to be pretty.

  He had intended to head straight to his office, use the rest of the day to wade through the never-ending stream of paperwork that flowed through that tiny little room. Then McLean remembered DC MacBride’s cryptic text and decided that finding out what the constable had been up to would be infinitely more fun. He pushed his way through the doors to the main first floor corridor, squeezed past the pile of archive files being moved out of the Weatherly incident room to make way for whatever investigation needed it most, and slipped into the much smaller room dedicated to the investigation into the as-yet nameless tattooed man.

  MacBride was nowhere to be seen, but another figure sat at his desk.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Ritchie. What a pleasant surprise.’

  DS Ritchie looked up from the report she had been reading, and for a moment McLean thought he’d got the wrong person. Her eyes were dark circles, puffy and sore. Her short red hair hung around her face like wet rags. Her skin was pale, just the golden spots of her freckled cheeks to give any colour. She’d only been off a few days, and yet she looked like she’d lost half her body weight.

  ‘Afternoon, sir. Thought you were over at HQ.’ Ritchie struggled to her feet.

  ‘Sit down, sit down.’ McLean flapped his hands like an old hen, and Ritchie slumped back into her seat with an audible sigh. ‘I was going to ask how you were, but you look—’

  ‘Like shit?’ Ritchie’s smile was something of the sergeant he knew, but it was tired.

  ‘I wasn’t going to say it myself, but since you mention it. Yes. You sure you’re OK to come back to work? What the hell happened, anyway?’

  Ritchie scrubbed at her face with both hands, digging the heels into her eyes and rubbing hard for a moment. It didn’t improve how she looked much. ‘I’ve no idea, sir. Must’ve picked up some lurgy at Weatherly’s house. One of the Fife constables came down with a bad flu bug the day after, I’m told. I didn’t start feeling sick until the next day myself. We were interviewing friends and business colleagues.’

  ‘That’s right. You interviewed Mrs Saifre.’

  Ritchie raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  ‘I met her at the wake, yesterday. She said you’d spoken to her.’

  ‘Aye, well. She was the last. Strange woman.’ Ritchie frowned, as if she’d been going to say something but had forgotten what it was as soon as she tried to speak. Then she shook her head, let whatever it was go. ‘To be honest I was feeling OK by the end of it all. A bit run-down maybe, but you know how it is when you’ve spent the whole day asking people the same questions over and over.’

  McLean did, all too well.

  ‘Next morning I could barely move. Never had a bug hit me like that before. Felt like someone had shrunk my brain and it was rattling around inside my head. I tried to hit it with flu drugs, but I couldn’t keep anything down more than a minute. You really don’t want
to know any more details, trust me on that.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it. It’s good to have you back. Even if, you know, you look like you really ought to be still in bed.’

  Ritchie stiffened slightly at the suggestion, the tiniest hint of colour deepening her freckles.

  ‘I can manage, sir. Honest. Just don’t ask me to go running after any criminals for a day or two.’ She lifted the report from her desk, then let it fall back again. ‘Paperwork’s good.’

  ‘Well, if you get really bored I’m sure I can find you plenty. You seen MacBride about recently?’

  ‘He was here, oh, maybe a half-hour ago.’ Ritchie checked her watch. ‘Might’ve gone down to the canteen for a cup of tea. Grumpy Bob was muttering about it being four o’clock somewhere.’

  ‘Actually, tea sounds like a great idea. You want one?’

  Ritchie picked up a bottle of spring water from her desk and held it to her forehead. Drips of condensation on the outside glistened in the overhead lights. They matched the sheen on her forehead. ‘Having a bit of a hard time keeping tea down at the moment, sir. Water’s fine, though. Hurts less on the way back up.’

  McLean was going to suggest that maybe she’d be doing them all a favour if she just went home. The last thing he needed was the rest of his team coming down with something so debilitating, let alone getting it himself. But then he’d been at the house in Fife with Ritchie, and he’d shared his car with her all the way there and back. If anyone was going to get what she had then it was him. Before he could say anything, and risk seriously putting his foot in it, the door to the incident room swung open to reveal the twin figures of DC MacBride and Grumpy Bob, each clasping a mug of tea in one hand and a biscuit in the other. The only way you could tell they weren’t twins, apart from the obvious age difference, was that while MacBride had a case file slipped under his arm, Grumpy Bob’s reading of choice appeared to be the Edinburgh Herald.

  ‘Ah, you’re back, sir. Sorry I had to leave you at HQ like that.’

  McLean eyed MacBride’s steaming mug of tea, wondering whether his seniority would allow him to commandeer it, and maybe the biscuit as well, and send the constable back for more. Then he realized that was exactly the sort of thing Duguid would do.

  ‘No matter. I assume it was something important.’

  MacBride looked a little sheepish, something he was quite good at. He went swiftly over to the desk Ritchie was occupying, put down his tea, then balanced his biscuit precariously on the edge of the mug before pulling the folder out from under his arm. Grumpy Bob, McLean noticed, was completely unapologetic about his own mug, taking a noisy slurp before chomping on his biscuit.

  ‘I had an email in from the DNA database people.’ MacBride unlocked a drawer in the desk, opened it and pulled out his tablet computer. A couple of swipes on the screen. ‘I needed to check with them directly before I spoke to you about it.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Well, there weren’t any matches, sir. Not on the civilian database, certainly.’

  ‘You ran it past the military, though?’

  ‘Yes, and that’s where it gets interesting.’ MacBride swiped a couple more times, then turned the tablet so McLean could see. He peered at the screen but it was mostly numbers arranged in boxes, along with some tiny text he really couldn’t read without giving himself a migraine.

  ‘In words a normal person can understand?’

  MacBride’s expression was that of a disappointed parent, which was strange given his age. ‘DNA matching’s not an exact science, sir. It’s like fingerprint matching in many respects, only a lot more complicated.’

  ‘I don’t need a lecture, Constable, just an answer. Have we got a match or not?’

  ‘Possibly. Only it’s unlikely.’

  McLean held his breath and counted to ten. MacBride opened his mouth to speak, but Grumpy Bob beat him to the punchline.

  ‘There’s a partial match, aye. Above-average probability that it’s the same person.’

  ‘So what’s the problem? You’ve got a name, I take it? Request his personnel file, get his address, track him down.’

  ‘There’s just the wee inconvenient fact that the person in question died in Afghanistan four years ago.’ Grumpy Bob took another slurp of his tea, shoving the last of his biscuit in after it.

  McLean paused for a moment to let that sink in. ‘What was his name?’

  MacBride swiped at his screen again. ‘Lance Corporal William Beaumont, sir. He was in the Royal Highland Fusiliers, apparently. Local boy. The info we got says he trod on an IED during a patrol. Wasn’t much of him left to bring home.’

  Afghanistan. IED. The words triggered a partial memory, but McLean couldn’t immediately put his finger on it.

  ‘The Fusiliers? So he’d have been stationed at Glencorse.’ McLean checked his watch, then the window. It was fully dark out now, but the army never really slept. ‘Who fancies a trip over to the barracks, then?’

  28

  Glencorse Barracks, home to the Royal Highland Fusiliers, was sandwiched between Beeslack and Milton Bridge, to the north of Penicuik. Heading south past the bypass, McLean realized that it was just across the river and a little upstream of the spot where their mysterious tattooed man had gone over the cliff. If he’d gone over the cliff. He’d asked for a boat team to search the banks for any clues, but given the weather conditions it was unlikely they’d even been out yet, let alone found anything.

  Despite her obvious weariness, DS Ritchie had volunteered to accompany him. It might just have been a ruse to get herself out of the station and sit in a nice warm car for a while. She didn’t say much at the start of the journey, and by the time they’d joined the slow snarl-up of commuter traffic on Liberton Brae, she’d fallen asleep. He was happy to let her; should probably have sent her home and forced Grumpy Bob to come with him. He certainly wasn’t going to wake her just to make her take down a note about the barracks and its proximity to the river. He could remember that much, surely.

  It took far longer to get there than he’d anticipated, and McLean worried that the administrative offices would be closed. They had to wait at security, had their warrant cards taken away for cross-checking and then waited some more for an escort to be found. Then they were led across a vast parade ground, through a maze of passageways and buildings it would be impossible to find their way back from, and eventually into the presence of an elderly gentleman in uniform, sitting behind an old desk in a room straight from the 1950s.

  ‘Anthony McLean. What a pleasant surprise.’ The officer stood, walked around the desk and proffered a hand to shake. McLean took it, trying not to look too puzzled. ‘Er. Have we met, sir?’

  ‘Of course, you’ll have forgotten. Must be, what, twenty years? More, probably. Gilbert Bottomley. Used to live just up the road from your grandmother’s place. We played bridge every Tuesday. It was terribly sad when, well, you know.’

  McLean was still none the wiser, although he vaguely remembered a group of odd people who would come around and drink too much gin with his gran once a week or so. He’d have been at university by then, living in his own place in Newington. But he wasn’t going to pass up the possibility of help.

  ‘She had a good innings, er … Major?’

  ‘Ah, you do remember. Splendid. Only it’s Lieutenant Colonel now, but please, call me Gilbert. And who is your lovely young assistant?’

  Even though she was standing slightly behind him, McLean could feel the tension rise in DS Ritchie. It was heartening to see that she still had that spark, but the last thing he needed right now was a snarky comment.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Ritchie is a valuable member of my team, um, Gilbert.’

  ‘Delighted, I’m sure.’ The lieutenant colonel didn’t offer a hand to be shaken this time, increasing Ritchie’s hostility by an order of magnitude. Completely oblivious to any offence he might be causing, Bottomley returned to his side of the desk and dropped back down into his chair. ‘Now
, what can I do for you? I assume this isn’t a social visit. Though I’m sure I could rustle up a fourth if you fancied a rubber. You play bridge?’

  McLean struggled to keep up with the flow. ‘Sorry? Oh. No. Don’t really have the time, sadly.’

  ‘Damned shame.’

  ‘Yes. Well. I was looking for some information about one of your soldiers. Ex-soldiers, I should say. Lance Corporal William Beaumont?’

  ‘Beaumont. Beaumont. Rings a bell.’ The lieutenant colonel pulled a keyboard towards him, and tapped away at it with two fingers for a moment while peering at a large flat screen quite out of place among the rest of the decor. ‘Ah. Here we go. Yes. Lance Corporal William Beaumont. Hmm.’

  McLean stood patiently while the lieutenant colonel stared at the screen, occasionally clicking the mouse to scroll down. Every so often he’d let out a little grunt of surprise, or a tut at something that didn’t fit in with his narrow world-view. Eventually he slumped back into his chair.

  ‘Why was it you were interested in him?’

  ‘His name came up in a DNA search on an unidentified body we fished out of the river just downstream of here a week or so ago.’ McLean had a file with him, and a few photographs, but he didn’t want to bring it out unless he had to.

  ‘Well, it’s not him. At least not according to this.’ The lieutenant colonel leaned forward again, tapped a couple more keys. ‘No, according to this—’

  ‘He died in Afghanistan. IED. Yes, I know.’

  ‘Well why’d you come here then?’

  ‘I was hoping I might have been able to speak to someone who served with him. Was also wondering if you had any regimental photographs, that sort of thing.’

  ‘What, like this?’ Bottomley swivelled the computer screen around so that McLean could see what was there. It was the front end of some kind of military database, the top left-hand corner of the screen taken up with a mug shot of Lance Corporal William Beaumont. The face looking out at him didn’t have tattoos blackening its cheeks and forehead, but it was quite unmistakably the man they’d fished out of the North Esk. Unless he had an identical twin.