The Gathering Dark: Inspector McLean 8

by James Oswald

  The room had gone very quiet, Madame Rose’s voice dropping almost to a low, rumbling whisper. Despite the warmth of the afternoon that had persisted well into evening, a chill settled around the library. McLean opened his mouth to say something in response, but the door swung open, pushed by a well-placed foot as Emma returned. She held a mug of tea in one hand, a plate piled high with the most enormous wedge of cake he had ever seen in the other. Warmth tumbled in around her.

  ‘Oh, Rose. Are you going?’

  ‘Duty calls, my dear. But I will see you again soon. These books won’t catalogue themselves.’ The medium headed for the door, brushing close by McLean as she went with a whispered ‘Be wary.’

  And then she was gone.

  He snapped awake, sitting bolt upright in the wide bed. Sweat sheened his back and chest, hair damp on his head. His heart hammered away as if he’d run a marathon, or the hundred yards from the Usher Hall to the scene of the crash still playing itself out in his mind as the nightmare faded. He let the cool air dry his skin as he calmed his breathing, staring across the room to the still-dark window that looked out on to the garden. Beside him, Emma snored a gentle rhythmic rumble. She snorted once, then rolled over, dragging the covers with her. A moment’s silence, underlined by the ticks and creaks and groans of the old house settling around him. Then the snoring started up again.

  Demon-red numbers told him that it was almost half past four in the morning. He’d not been late to bed, but even so that was early for McLean. He wasn’t going to get any more sleep, though.

  He used one of the guest bathrooms, not wanting to wake Emma from her slumbers. The closer she came to term, the more erratic her sleep patterns. The snoring was something new, too. She looked constantly tired, so the last thing she needed was him disturbing what little sleep she could manage. Was this what the future held? When their child was born? Yawning and stretching, McLean wondered whether he was prepared for that. Whether anything could prepare him for that.

  Mrs McCutcheon’s cat stared up at him from her place in front of the Aga when he walked into the kitchen and flipped on the light. A flurry of motion at the far side of the room, where the door lay slightly ajar through to the utility room and the catflap to the outside world, suggested that she’d not been alone in her slumbers. Mostly the army of cats that had taken up residence in the gardens kept to the outdoors, but occasionally one might poke a nose inside. He didn’t much mind as long as they kept out of the main house.

  The dream troubled him as he drank his coffee and munched a bit of cold pizza left over from last night’s supper. It wasn’t perhaps surprising, given the horror of the accident, that it kept coming back to haunt him. He’d lied about it to the counsellor, which was probably stupid. On the other hand, if he admitted to the bad dreams then she would most likely force him to take time off. That might please Emma, but the last thing McLean wanted was to sit around and dwell on the horror. He’d always found that throwing himself into the investigation was the best way to deal with things. Clear up the case, find some small restitution for the dead and the bereaved. Then the nightmares would end.

  Not quite sure why he did it, McLean took his coffee back through to the library. The approach of dawn had begun to chase away the deeper shadows, but he still had to switch on the light to see properly. The pile of books lay on the table, untouched from the evening before. He picked up the top one, opened it again. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Cassel and Company, first edition, published in 1883. Amazing that something could survive so long undamaged by the unfolding events all around it.

  His memories of his parents were vague now, the experiences of a four-year-old warped by ten times as many years laid on top of them. Still, he could see his old bedroom, the pictures on the wall, the solid wooden furniture and narrow, iron-framed bed. His father would come in of an evening, pull up a chair that was far too small for him, open this very book and begin to read. Was this something he would do for his own child? He hoped so.

  Carefully turning the pages from the top corner the way he had been shown by the ancient librarian at his hated boarding school, McLean read the opening paragraphs quietly out loud, and wondered how much his echoing voice sounded like his father’s.

  27

  The chemical stench is beginning to fade from the red scarf now. It’s there if I bury my face in it, but then so are the crusty spots of Maddy’s blood. I keep it close as a reminder of her, a focus for my rage. It sits on the table, partially covering a mobile phone I don’t remember owning. Must have found it lying around and picked it up, just can’t remember when. No charge in the thing, and it’s password-protected. Maybe I’ll find a charger for it, hack my way in and return it to its owner sometime. I’ve more important things to be getting on with right now.

  You’d probably call me a hacker, or maybe a hacktivist if you’re prone to that kind of thing. Probably got some romantic idea of a techno-warrior for justice, bringing advanced coding skills to bear in the war against the man. Sometimes I might even agree with you, but mostly it’s just long hours staring at blurry screens for very little reward. Still, it gives me something to do, a way of fighting back.

  I think it was something Gordon the policeman said that set me off initially, or it might just have been his doggedness, his determination to put someone behind bars for the things that went on in that house in Essex. He never succeeded, and I learned early on that the sort of people who did that kind of thing were very good at covering their tracks.

  I just needed to be better than them.

  And that’s what I do. I sit at my computer like a spider at the centre of its web, feeling the strands as they twist and vibrate. Partly it’s carrying on Gordon’s work, looking for the people who abused me, but partly it’s just me against the man. You’d be surprised how close to a perfect circle that Venn diagram is, mind you. There’s way too much shit in this world, and most of it’s done by the sort of people who get their kicks in places like that big old house in Essex where I grew up.

  I guess it makes a certain kind of sense. If you’re amoral enough to hoard cash in secret offshore bank accounts and avoid tax when normal folk can barely scrape enough together to eat, then using children for your own sick pleasure’s hardly going to keep you awake at night, is it? And it’s not as if these people don’t know what they’re doing is wrong, either. Otherwise they wouldn’t be half so good at hiding it.

  Spotting the patterns is what I’m good at. Gathering information and sifting through it until the truth emerges from the fog of lies. That’s how I knew about Finlay McGregor long before I went out to that compound near Broxburn. Long before the crash tore Maddy from me just when we’d been reunited. The name had popped up in another search, a different target, a bigger scam that goes a long way towards explaining why that truck was carrying highly toxic waste through the city centre in the first place. It ties into so many other things, links them all together in a way that might not satisfy a judge and jury but is good enough for me.

  The problem is, I’m not the only one who’s found it. Someone else has been following the same threads as me, pulling on them so delicately I doubt anyone would notice if they weren’t looking. They might be after the same thing I am, but it looks more like they’re systematically erasing the connections I’ve spent months tracing. And not only that, they’ve been constructing a slightly different narrative, setting up various links that weren’t there before. Almost as if they know this operation’s been rumbled and they want to throw the suspicion on someone else.

  I’m careful, always, but now I’m scared, too. What if they traced things back to me? What if they found out what I was doing, and this is their idea of damage limitation? What if that truck didn’t crash by accident? Could this whole thing be my fault?

  28

  McLean stifled a yawn and reached out for the mug of coffee on his desk, disappointed and surprised to find that it was already empty. Waking early had meant he’d made it into w
ork an hour before the morning briefing; plenty of time to go through the paperwork on his desk and decide what could continue to be ignored. There was surprisingly little to deal with, partly because he was no longer the junior detective inspector in the station, but mostly he suspected because Chief Superintendent Forrester was taking on the bulk of the administration himself.

  It was a change, and a welcome one at that. For too long they’d struggled under poor management. First from Duguid, who should never have been promoted beyond DCI, and then from Brooks, who elevated favouritism to an art form. Stuff had been dumped on him because he got it done, McLean realized. All those long hours spent wading through piles of reports and overtime sheets that really should have been someone else’s job. Now they had a man in charge who understood the importance of playing to people’s strengths. Just a pity there were so few detectives left for him to manage effectively.

  A glance at the clock showed there was still a half-hour to go before he’d have to head to the major-incident room. Time enough to top up his coffee from the pot across the room, and have a look through one more report.

  The knock on the door startled him, and McLean looked up to see DC Blane standing in the open doorway.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, sir, only DCI McIntyre wondered if you were coming to the morning briefing?’

  ‘Is it time already?’ McLean glanced at his watch, surprised to see he’d been engrossed in the file all that time. ‘I was just reading your report into the financial side of Finlay McGregor. It’s thorough, I’ll give you that.’

  Blane nodded his head slightly, although whether that was acknowledgement of the praise or embarrassment, McLean couldn’t be sure. He closed up the report, as ready as he would ever be to head into the melee of the morning briefing.

  ‘I’m no expert, but would I be right in thinking that Finlay McGregor was a company rather too much in debt?’

  ‘That’s what I thought, sir. They’ve bought a lot of new trucks recently, and I can’t see evidence of any big contracts to justify the cost. If I was their bank manager I’d be nervous of the exposure.’

  ‘So who’s lending them all the cash, then?’

  ‘As far as I can tell, it’s the same person who’s just taken a hefty share of the company. Hedge-fund manager by the name of Alan Lewis. He’s minted, sir. I mean, serious money. I’d be surprised if he wasn’t a billionaire, the things his company’s got interests in.’

  ‘Alan Lewis.’ McLean remembered the name now he heard it spoken. ‘Aye, that’s right. Finlay’s sister mentioned him. I was going to set up an interview. You couldn’t sort that, could you?’

  ‘Of course, sir. Any particular time?’

  ‘Sooner the better.’ McLean glanced back at the folder on his desk. ‘Though I might need to read through that wee report of yours again before I speak to him.’

  The major-incident room hummed with a quiet excitement as McLean entered, closely followed by DC Blane. He had to push his way through the throng to get to the front, where DCI McIntyre was glancing anxiously at her watch. Her shoulders slumped in relief as she spotted him.

  ‘About bloody time, Tony. Where’ve you been?’

  ‘In my office. Sorry. Lost track of time.’

  McIntyre shook her head, muttered something along the lines of ‘men’, then climbed up onto a chair the better to get everyone’s attention.

  ‘OK people. Quiet down. Let’s get this over and done with so you can all get on with your jobs.’

  McLean looked around the room for any other senior officers. DI Ritchie was nowhere to be seen, but then she hardly ever was these days. Grumpy Bob leaned back in a chair off to one side of the crowd, and DCI McIntyre was there, of course. He was surprised not to see the chief superintendent, though; the man had been pretty much running the incident room himself since the investigation had started.

  ‘We’ve still three bodies to identify. This long after the event I’d want that figure to be zero. We’ve plenty leads from the helpline. I need team one to get working through them as quickly as possible. Team two you’re doing good stuff with the CCTV, but the press are hassling us for results, so step it up a notch, OK?’ McIntyre turned away from the crowd, fixing her steely gaze upon McLean. ‘You want to bring us up to speed on yesterday’s developments, Tony?’

  McLean flushed slightly at being the sudden centre of attention. He’d not prepared anything, having spent the past half-hour engrossed in DC Blane’s report on the parlous financial state of Finlay McGregor. A sea of expectant faces gazed back at him as he stared out into the crowd, but out of the corner of his eye he could see the mischievous grin on McIntyre’s face.

  ‘As you’ll all have heard, Mike Finlay was found dead in the offices of Finlay McGregor early yesterday morning. I know what you’re all thinking; someone’s trying to cover their tracks after the truck crash and Mike Finlay was a loose end that needed tying off. I can’t deny it’s a very convincing theory, but the post-mortem suggests he wasn’t physically attacked. We’ve some unexplained security camera footage that needs investigation and Forensics are going to have another look over the scene, too, just in case. I –’

  ‘You think he topped himself? Done us all a favour?’

  McLean didn’t recognize the voice, and neither could he immediately tell where it had come from.

  ‘It’s unlikely he committed suicide, given the nature of his death. I’m more concerned this might have been a rather gruesome method of silencing him before he said too much. But, as I said, the post-mortem didn’t find any signs of foul play, so we’re not jumping to any conclusions either way.’

  ‘And we’re not mouthing off to the press either, are we, Constable.’

  All eyes turned to the door, where Chief Superintendent Forrester had just appeared. He pushed through the crowd with a great deal more ease than McLean’s earlier attempt, followed by a dark-suited man the detective inspector didn’t recognize. Judging by the look of him he was either SCDEA or NCA. A spook or a fed, depending on whatever derogatory nickname was making the rounds at the moment.

  ‘Tony, Jane.’ Forrester nodded to the two of them. ‘Sorry I’m late. Had to bring a few people up to speed.’

  ‘We were more or less finished actually, sir,’ McIntyre said. ‘Just going to get the sergeants to sort out the assignments. Night shift handover’s already done. You want to have a word with the troops before they’re dismissed?’

  Forrester opened his mouth as if to begin a speech, then closed it again, shaking his head. ‘No. I don’t think that’s necessary. Let’s get cracking shall we? Plenty to do, and I need a quick word with the senior officers before I meet with the DCC.’

  McLean said nothing, just watched as McIntyre dismissed the crowd. Most already knew what they were meant to be doing, the rest clustering around their sergeants like schoolchildren on a day trip. Soon enough the scrum subsided and the four of them were left alone to one side of the room.

  ‘DI Ritchie not about, then?’ Forrester looked around like a man trying to find the toilet in an unfamiliar pub.

  ‘No, sir. Figure she’s been called back to Perth.’ McIntyre turned her attention to the other man. Like McLean, he’d remained silent, careful eyes taking in the unfolding scene. ‘You’d know more about that, though, wouldn’t you, Tim?’

  ‘Operation Fenton’s not my case, Jayne.’

  ‘So what brings you over to our side of the country, then? Been kicked out of the Crime Campus for bad behaviour?’

  ‘Chance’d be a fine thing.’ The man in the dark suit had an English accent, Home Counties if McLean was any judge. It reminded him of boarding school: well-educated but not plummy. He’d scanned the whole room in the short seconds it had taken to walk from the door to where they all stood, but only now did he seem to acknowledge McLean’s presence.

  ‘Detective Inspector McLean, I presume?’

  ‘Have you two not met before?’ McIntyre’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘Sorry, I just assumed you
’d know each other. Tony, this is DCI …’ She paused a moment. ‘Featherstonehaugh? Is that how you pronounce it?’

  The man rolled his eyes theatrically. ‘It’s pronounced Fanshaw, Jayne, and well you know it.’ He held a hand out for McLean. ‘Tim,’ he said. ‘And you’re Tony McLean. I’ve heard a lot about you, Detective Inspector.’

  ‘All good, I hope?’ McLean felt the man’s grip, firm but not trying to prove anything. His skin was cool and dry.

  ‘Mostly.’ Featherstonehaugh tilted his head slightly. ‘The bad stuff’s more interesting, though.’

  ‘Tim’s with the NCA, Tony.’

  ‘Looking to take over our investigation, are you?’ McLean meant it as a joke, but he was surprised to see the National Crime Agency taking an interest.

  ‘More our style to wait until all the hard work’s done, then swoop in and take all the credit.’ Featherstonehaugh smiled as he flicked his head in Forrester’s direction. The chief superintendent had wandered off to deal with a query from one of the uniform sergeants, clearly in his element. ‘No, it’s just some other business I needed to sort out. Nothing to do with this investigation, fascinating though it is.’

  McLean watched him as he spoke, catching that slight flicker in the eye he’d seen so many times before, in so many interview rooms. He knew nothing about Featherstonehaugh, had never met him before today, but it didn’t take a genius to know that the man was lying. There was no good reason why the NCA shouldn’t be interested in their investigation, so what was he trying to hide?

  29

  ‘Come in, come in. Please. So you’re the famous Detective Inspector McLean. I’ve heard a lot about you.’

  McLean couldn’t help but recall the similar words from the NCA agent, Featherstonehaugh, just an hour or so earlier. Bad enough that his fellow officers talked about him behind his back, but to be gossip among international financiers was much worse. What possible reason could this man have for knowing who he was?